A five-and-a-half hour documentary, My Undesirable Friends follows some female reporters who are trying to counteract the propaganda machine of their country.
Born in Russia and based in Brooklyn, Loktev went to Moscow in the fall of 2021 to research a potential project. She’d read an article in the NY Times about a generation of muckrakers standing up against the state via independent organizations and DIY podcasts like Hi, You’re a Foreign Agent (blanket term for anyone in the media who doesn’t toe the party line), and wanted to know more.
She reached out to friend Anya Nezmer, who worked for the online network “TV Rain.” and had been calling Putin out for years. Nezmer theh arranged for other introductions and served as the docu’s voice of experience.
The film follows Anya, the podcasters Sonya Groysman and Olga Churakova, online reporter Alesya Marokhovskaya, and others as they try to get their message heard.
Ksenia Mironova is barred from visiting her fiancé in prison, a journalist facing long sentence for murky reasons. Another, Irina Dolinina, chides her mom for worrying about her at protests.
The fact that even the most innocuous videos posted must be accompanied by message declaring that it’s the product of media supposedly being funded and communicated by foreign powers is not a joke.
The full title of Loktev’s extended verité to these heroes is My Undesirable Friends — Part 1: Last Air in Moscow. That subtitle is well-earned. By the time war on Ukraine begins in February 2022, all of her subjects’ outlets will be shut down, and every one will leave Moscow.
Loktev is working on a Part 2 that will pick up the rest of their stories in exile. But you spend the proceeding four chapters fully knowing what awaits them. Even before the filmmaker’s cameras catch the exact moment that Rain employees are told that special forces are showing up to take them into custody and they flee in panic, the sense of instability and dread is palpable. Life during wartime will make what came before seem positively calm. At one point, Anya jokes that October 2021 will seem like paradise to them a few years down the road. The only thing she got wrong was the timing.
